


Abandonment Issues

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [11]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Gen, M/M, Self Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, abuse mention, csa mention, self harm implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Dally left for New York after his mother died and Johnny never felt more alone.





	1. Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this idea sure came out of nowhere, but yay!! i'm glad i had another one-shot idea!! !

Four years, three months, two weeks, four days. That was how Johnny woke himself up every morning, figuring out how long it had been since Dally had gone to New York.

It’d been unexpected. Dally and his father had disappeared overnight, only a few days after they buried Dally’s mother in the local cemetery. They’d left the house and most everything in it, but they’d loaded up the truck and driven it to New York. The only reason any of them knew that was because Dally had left a short letter under the welcome mat next to the spare key.

 

_Gone to New York with my old man. I dunno if I’ll be back. - D_

 

It was short. Emotionless. Impersonal. Told them nothing except the baseline facts and Johnny hated it, hated the lack of explanation, hated that Dally had disappeared overnight and hadn’t even come to say goodbye. In his heart, he understood it. He knew that neither Dally nor his father could stand to live in the house where Dally’s mother had died, but that didn’t make him any less angry. That didn’t stop him from feeling any less abandoned. And it was the first thing that hit him every morning when he woke up as he recited the numbers of days, weeks, months, and years in his head, and with the reminder came the pain of knowing Dally wasn’t there anymore and it was looking more and more like he never would be again.

He stared at the blank white expanse of his ceiling, not really seeing it. Instead, he saw Dally’s bedroom. He saw the decorated rug where they played with his cars. He saw Dally’s living room and the kitchen where his mother gave them milk and cookies before Dally’s father got home. He saw the vacant lot and the car seat where they sat and watched the stars. He thought of all the things they’d talked about. Dally had been the only one who knew about the nightly visits Johnny’s father paid him. Now he had no one to talk to about...anything. No one who could protect him from himself. Deep down, he knew he had the gang, but Johnny had never felt more alone than he did now.

Tears welled in his eyes and traced wet lines down the side of his face. He didn’t make a sound as they fell and he wiped them away before they could reach his ears. He didn’t want to get out of bed. He wanted to lie there beneath the blankets, but he didn’t have that option. Not in this house. If he were in bed too long, his mother would come in here to yell at him or beat him for _some_ thing eventually. He had to leave before she decided to do that.

Letting out a long suffering sigh and closing his eyes, his lips parting slightly, Johnny threw back his blankets and forced himself to sit upright. His head spun for a moment as all the blood rushed out of it, but once he was certain he wouldn’t pass out if he stood up, he did and grabbed his jeans and denim jacket off the floor. He didn’t bother trying to find another tshirt. He didn’t want to have to change and this one didn’t look dirty anyway.

With a huff, he pushed open his window and clambered out of it, dropping onto a patch of grass and dandelions outside his window. He didn’t bother shutting it as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and headed out of his backyard to the street. He wasn’t sure where he was going to go. Just away from here. For the next twelve hours until his parents were asleep or he went to sleep in the vacant lot just down the street.

But some impulse took him in the opposite direction. He walked around to the front of the house and then started down the street in the direction of the Curtis house.

The Curtis house was much more welcoming than any of the houses of any of the rest of the gang, even after their parents died in a horrible car crash. Johnny had preferred Dally’s house because Dally’s mother, Sheila, was like the mother he never had. When she’d died he’d been devastated. Dally’s disappearance had punctuated that loss and as a result, he’d never really gotten over it. More and more he found himself wishing he could join her. He knew there were ways to make that happen, but he was too much of a coward to try anything that would be too painful. The countless scars on the insides of his arms made that seem kind of ironic, but the way he saw it, he was choosing to hurt himself then and he knew how much it was going to hurt. Anything else would be unanticipated.

It took less than ten minutes to get from one end of the street to the other, but it seemed like he blinked and suddenly he was walking up the steps of the Curtis’ front stoop and then, just as suddenly, he was knocking. When he pulled his knuckles away, he realized he could hear the rest of the gang already inside. They all came over often for Darry’s cooking and the pleasant atmosphere.

The door opened within a few seconds of him knocking and he saw Two-Bit, already holding a beer, grinning as he pulled open the door. However, there must’ve been something in Johnny’s face because that grin faltered when he saw him.

“Hey, Johnnycake,” he said, his voice softer than it had been a moment before. “What’s up?”

Johnny gave a small wince-like smile that seemed more pained than he meant it to and shrugged. “Just thought I’d stop by.” He didn’t look Two-Bit in the eye. Two-Bit didn’t say anything. He knew him well enough to know that kind of reaction meant his presence was related to his parents.

Two-Bit’s smile was sad and concerned as he opened the door and stepped to one side to let Johnny in. He couldn’t figure out why. Did he really look as miserable as he felt? If so, he knew there was nothing for it. He couldn’t make himself feel better any other way than with a razor blade. And maybe Two-Bit knew that. Or did he just imagine the way his eyes flicked to his arms covered by the denim jacket more than once as he walked through the door?

Everyone else was there too. Steve and Soda were dressed for work and shoveling down plates full of eggs on toast, trying to talk to one another around mouths full of food. Ponyboy was at the table with them, also trying to talk about...whatever it was they were talking about. Johnny found he couldn’t really hear what they were saying. Everything he wasn’t paying attention to sounded muffled, far away, distant, unimportant.

_Where are you, Dallas?_

He shuffled to the table, standing at the edge, watching everyone talk with a dazed expression until Steve looked at him and did a double take, his own expression morphing from carefree to concerned within a matter of seconds? Did he really look that bad?

“Hey Johnny,” Steve said, his voice a little too careful to be casual. “How are you, kid?”

Sodapop and Ponyboy looked at Johnny too. He didn’t bother looking at them to see their own horrified expressions.

Johnny tried forcing another smile. He could hear Darry cooking in the kitchen, but the house seemed to have gone oddly silent as Soda, Steve, and Pony all waited for his answer. He didn’t think his second attempt at a smile was convincing either. Still, he said, “I’m okay. I just wanted to get out of the house, y’know?” He tried another smile and almost succeeded or must have anyway because it was just enough to make Soda and Steve’s expressions go almost all the way back to normal. They still looked worried, but it was an improvement. They always seemed to be worried about him anymore and he didn’t really know why.

Pulling out a chair, Johnny sat down at the table, the conversation going back to mumbles as he drifted away from it once more. He sat there, his hands in his pockets, blinking at the wall, thinking about Dallas and what he might be doing in New York. But he couldn’t even imagine it. New York sounded like an entirely different planet compared to their tiny Tulsa neighborhood.

What was so much better about New York?

He felt oddly bitter. Why had Dally left him? What had he done wrong? All he’d ever done was be there for Dally and he still treated him just like everyone else and left him here all alone.

 _He didn’t leave you alone,_ a voice tried to remind him. _You have the gang._

But it wasn’t the same and he didn’t know why, but it wasn’t. Not at all.

The mumbled conversation lasted until Soda and Steve had to go to work. Two-Bit left not long after, saying something about getting drunk at home. Then Ponyboy went to take a shower and before Johnny had time to really notice what was going on, he was alone in the kitchen with Darry, who was now washing the dishes. He hadn’t said a thing to him since he’d come in, but once everyone was gone, he roused Johnny from his stupor by saying, “You sure you ain’t hungry?”

Johnny blinked and realized for the first time he was the only person still sitting at the table. He turned to Darry, blinking stupidly for a few moments before he registered what he had said and replied, “Nah. I’m okay.”

Darry turned off the water and came to sit next to Johnny at the table. He wore the same concerned expression that everyone else wore except it went deeper. There was something personal there, something that was missing in the faces of the others, as if Darry knew exactly what Johnny had been thinking about, what he had been doing, and wasn’t sure that simple words of comfort could stop him. And Johnny really couldn’t tell him he was wrong.

“Are you though?”

It was only three words. Simple words. Words that confirmed everything Johnny had just thought, but at the same time were so hard to answer.

_Are you though?_

Was he though?

He really wasn’t sure.

“Look,” Darry said, his voice soft, “if you ever wanna stay over here, you can. Ain’t nobody uses the couch except Soda and Two-Bit to watch TV and that’d be after you got up anyway.” Darry smiled then, a warm smile, one Soda hadn’t seen him use since their parents died a few months ago. Maybe he really did understand what Johnny was going through.

But an overpowering part of him told him not to inconvenience anyone, even if they were offering and he forced another fake smile, tugged the sleeves of his denim jacket down over his scars, ignored the way Darry watched him do it, and said, “I’m fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to add wayyyy more one-shots to this fic even though i'm currently writing a big fic, soooo IF YOU GOT IDEAS!!!!!!!! COMMENT!!!!!!!!!


	2. Red on the Tracks and Silver in the Sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny goes to the train yard on the edge of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ficlet time!! idk if anyone will notice this has been updated or read this, but i hope they do!! 
> 
> also it occurred to me when i was listening to them that starset rly is the ultimate jally band. like listen to any of their songs and you’ll get the feel of any of these fics. the song for this fic is dark on me. 
> 
> finally YES THIS WAS ALSO INSPIRED BY THAT ONE FIC (just like him by dyingpoet), so we crediting again. i can't directly credit it unless i was crediting the whole fic, BUT KNOW IT'S CREDITED HERE CAUSE IT DESERVES THE CREDIT. IT INSPIRED 3 FRICKIN FICS.

Four years, six months, three weeks, and five days. That was how long Dally had been gone. Johnny counted out the days as he walked, his hands stuffed in his pockets, towards the train yard. That amount of time came to a total of 1,668 days. Johnny was almost to the train yard and he’d started counting when he left his house, but he was still only in the five hundreds.

The distance to the train yard wasn’t even as many steps as Dally had been gone.

Johnny had been alone for too long. He’d been up all night, alone with his thoughts and a bottle of his father’s whiskey. He’d never drank before. Not even with the gang. But that night something had broken inside him. Maybe it was the fact his father had assaulted him again and let his friends assault him too. Maybe it was the fact his mother blamed him for it and therefore continued to just let it happen. Or maybe it was the fact he felt like everything about his life was hopeless and there was nothing he could do to change it.

Whatever it had been, it had been enough to get him out of his bed, though he still could barely move from what his father and his friends had done, walk on tiptoe to the kitchen and reach beneath the sink where his father’s liquor was stored. He’d spent enough time with the gang to know it would taste bad without a mixer, so he dug some root beer – his mother’s – out of the refrigerator, grabbed a glass from the cupboard above the kitchen counter, and filled it halfway up with whiskey before pouring in the root beer. He used a spoon to stir the two together and returned to his bedroom where he downed the entire glass in record time, the root beer masking the taste of the alcohol so well, and went back for seconds. He’d only barely started in on the second glass when he started thinking.

He thought about Dally. How he’d left. How his note had been impersonal and emotionless. How he hadn’t come and told him goodbye. He hadn’t told anyone goodbye, but Johnny felt he would’ve at least told him. Dally had been his best friend and now he’d been gone for four almost five years and Johnny knew he was going to have to start to accept that Dally probably wasn’t coming back.

That had been the thought that made him climb out his window and head for the train yard.

Because he had realized something very important: there was only one reason he hadn’t jumped off the bridge that connected their town to the big cities.

Or stepped in front of a train.

It was because he believed Dally was coming back. And now he’d finally realized he wasn’t.

So he realized that the train yard was closer than the bridge and headed in that direction.

He stepped through the hole that was in the chain link fence on one side of the train yard and walked over train tracks and past boxcars to the main set of tracks, the busiest set, the ones that had trains not coming in and out of the train yard, but flying past it at top speed. Johnny knew in school how long it took a train to slow down. They’d never be able to stop in time by the time they saw him standing on the tracks.

He’d done his research a few months ago. Just in case.

That research had included the train’s schedules. He knew that within ten minutes there would be a train coming down the tracks, flying past the train yard on its way to some unknown destination. Being hit that hard that fast would kill him instantly.

The world was spinning in fast circles from how much alcohol he’d drank. He was staggering all over the train yard and, later, he would be surprised no one tried to stop him and ask him why he, a twelve year old kid, was so drunk he couldn’t stand in one place or walk without stumbling.

When Johnny reached the tracks, he stood in front of them, staring down at them. They looked so harmless and yet being on them at the wrong time meant certain death. He wondered what it would feel like when the train him, if he would feel any pain or if he’d just be there one moment and dead the next. He hoped it was the second one. He didn’t want to die painfully. He wanted it to be quick.

The train tracks right in front of his feet began to rattle. He looked to the right down the tracks and saw the far of light of a train coming quickly towards him. He could hear it blowing its horn even from all the way down here.

He thought about the gang and wondered if they’d miss him and decided quickly they wouldn’t. Soda, Darry, and Ponyboy had each other. Plus they were all too busy going to school to really spend much time thinking about him. The same went for Two-Bit and Steve. They all also had their own problems. They wouldn’t even notice he was gone.

And as for Dally...well he would never even know. He wasn’t coming back and, if by some strange twist of fate he _did_ come back to Tulsa years from now, he would find Johnny had died a long time ago. By then he would’ve been gone too long to care and he wouldn’t be affected either.

No one would be.

That was why he was doing this.

The train got closer, the tracks rattling with earnest now. Johnny could hear the sound of the train now too, hear the repetitive clack of train on the tracks. He could see the details of the train too when he looked at it and the smoke rising from its engine.

Soon it was close enough the light was shining right in his face, the conductor could probably see him now. Johnny turned away from the train and looked at the tracks again.

It was now or never.

He lifted his left and moved to step forwards –

– and a hand grabbed the back of his denim jacket, pulling him backwards just as the train reached him, letting its horn blast again, so loud now it was deafening. He felt the wind of the train as it whipped past him and he let out several gasping breaths, realizing how close he had come to being hit. Then he realized what that meant and his face twisted and he turned to see who had stopped him.

It was Darry. His car was parked on the side of the road just behind the train tracks.

Johnny let out an agonized moan and started trying to pummel Darry with his fists, shouting as he did so, “Why did you stop me?! Why did you stop me?! That’s what I wanted! I wanted to die!”

Darry caught his fists on the flat of his palms each time, a look of horrible anguish on his face.

Johnny smacked his fists against Darry’s palms until he couldn’t breathe from how much he was hyperventilating and he broke down into hysterical sobs, slumping against Darry, still asking over and over again, “Why did you stop me? Why did you stop me? I wanted to die. I wanted to _die_.”

Darry held him, letting him cry into his chest without making fun of him or judging him until his sobs subsided to hiccups and he was only sniffling, his breath still stuttering from how hard he’d been crying. The train was long since gone, the night silent around them once more.

“Johnny, you know damn well why I couldn’t let you step in front of that train,” Darry finally said. His voice was soft, his arms around Johnny were tight. “The gang would fall apart without you. Don’t you get that? You’re our pet and you ain’t replaceable, kid.”

Johnny didn’t know what to say to that because he wasn’t entirely sure he agreed.

“How ‘bout you come back to our place and spend the night?” Darry said, breaking the silence. “My folks ain’t gonna care. They know about your folks. You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

Everyone in town knew about his parents, but no one could do a damn thing about it. The police didn’t believe kids when they said they were being abused because they saw it as just harsh discipline. He knew this because more than once someone had tried calling the police on them and it had never once worked.

The memory of that had been one of the reasons he’d come to the train yard.

Still, he nodded at Darry’s offer and let him guide him from the edge of the tracks to the still-running car parked by the side of the road. Darry opened the passenger door for him and Johnny got shakily inside. He watched Darry cross in front of the car, passing by the headlights that lit him up like a pair of spotlights for just a moment.

The Curtis house wasn’t very far from the train tracks and Johnny felt like he blinked and they were parking in the street outside the front of the Curtis house. Johnny could see shadows moving behind the curtains drawn across the windows on the front of the house. Darry opened his door for him again and helped him out of the car.

Darry seemed to be able to tell he was drunk, though Johnny hadn’t said anything. He wondered if he could smell the alcohol on him.

To both his and Darry’s surprise, Steve and Two-Bit were there and sitting in the living room with Soda and Ponyboy. Everyone except Ponyboy was having a beer.

They found out quickly why: the Curtis parents had gone to a movie for their date night that month. As soon as they’d left, Soda had woken up Ponyboy and invited Two-Bit and Soda over. Apparently, they’d gone to Johnny’s but couldn’t find him and they all cheered when Darry came in with him, excited in their drunkenness for everyone to be there.

While Two-Bit and Steve attacked Darry with affection, Johnny used his uncanny ability to pass by unseen to stumbled into the bathroom, his fingers already reaching for the razor blade he kept in one of the chest pockets of his denim jacket. The world was still spinning, but it wasn’t just from the alcohol anymore. He felt like he was going to explode and there was only one thing that could stop that feeling, that could make it all go away, that could be his friend since Dally was gone and didn’t want to be his friend anymore.

He closed the bathroom door, turned on the sink and rolled up the sleeve of his jacket before placing the blade on his skin and pulling it across, watching the red lines that appeared on his skin with a small prickling pain each time he swiped the razor across it.

He didn’t know how long he was in the bathroom doing that, but long enough that someone outside started to worry and must have asked where he was and must have heard the sink on because the door opened behind him and there was Darry again. When he looked at his arms, he saw not individual cuts but a mass of blood, dripping from the gashes on his arm to the sink full of water, turning it bright pink as it swirled down the drain.

The look on Darry’s face was agonizing and hurt Johnny far more than the blade did.

It was disappointment.

He could take disappointment when it came from his folks. It still hurt, but it hurt less because he was used to seeing it, used to recognizing it in their faces for everything he did, though it was usually accompanied by anger and that made it easier to remind himself he didn’t deserve it.

But the look on Darry’s face was one of pure sadness and disappointment.

And the worst part was he knew Darry wasn’t disappointed with him but himself.

For leaving him alone.

“How much did you drink, Johnny?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He sounded so defeated Johnny felt a lump rise in his throat.

Johnny swallowed in response. “A glass and a half of root beer mixed with whiskey.” His voice was just as soft as Darry’s. He didn’t want the rest of the gang to hear him. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like they were sober even at this moment. It wasn’t like they’d been wasted before. So why care?

“C’mon,” Darry said, reaching out a hand to usher Johnny from the bathroom without touching him. “You need to go to bed. You need to sleep this off.”

Johnny didn’t look at the gang as he walked past the living room on his way to Darry’s bedroom, but he could feel all of their eyes on him until he reached Darry’s room and closed the door almost all the way behind him.

“He okay?” He heard Two-Bit ask once he closed the door.

“No,” he heard Darry reply. “I found him in the train yard. About to step onto the tracks. The only reason he’s here and not in pieces is cause I pulled him back just in time.”

“Jesus,” Steve whispered.

“He shouldn’t drink anymore,” Darry went on.

“He was drinkin’?” Two-Bit asked.

“Didn’t you smell the booze on him?” Darry replied. “He smells like he drank a liquor store.”

“How much he actually have?” Steve asked. Johnny could almost see him crossing his arms over his chest like he did every time he got nervous and wanted to act tough.

“A glass and a half of whiskey mixed with root beer.”

“Jesus,” Steve said again. “D’you think he wouldn’t have done this if he hadn’t been drunk? Is that why you don’t think he should drink anymore?”

There was another silence, but Johnny imagined Darry must be nodding because he said quickly, “No, I don’t. I think he mighta hurt himself. But I don’t think he woulda tried to kill himself.”

“What d’you mean by hurt himself?” Two-Bit asked.

“Cut himself with a razor.” Darry’s voice was monotone. Johnny winced. He only sounded that way when he was trying to keep himself from feeling too much at once.

“How d’you know he does _that_?” Soda asked.

“I just caught him doing it.”

“Jesus,” Steve said for a third time.

There was a silence. Johnny took off his pants, kicked off his shoes, tugged off his socks, and shrugged out of his denim jacket, crawling into Darry’s bed. It felt so much more comfortable than the car seat in the vacant lot.

“So do we agree he ain’t allowed to drink anymore?” Darry was saying now.

“Yeah,” Steve replied.

“Yeah,” echoed Two-Bit.

“Yup,” Soda said.

Ponyboy didn’t say anything, but Johnny bet he nodded.

A part of Johnny didn’t like that they were talking about him behind his back when they thought he couldn’t hear, but another part of him felt touched that they were all that worried about him. Which made yet another part of him feel guilty for worrying them to begin with.

He closed his eyes as though in pain. didn’t deserve them. Not when he did this to them.

Johnny was so drunk that he fell asleep not long after that, but the gang stayed awake in the living room, silent and sober despite the fact they were all drinking beer, for a long time after. All of them were half terrified Johnny would try to sneak out of the house to kill himself again and none of them wanted to sleep, not in case he did exactly that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might add to this ficlet at a later date, but it depends entirely upon whether i have more ideas for it or not. 
> 
> also yes this is the incident that made everyone decide johnny should never drink again. 
> 
> alsoalso, i realized while writing this that everything i’ve written in this universe, i’ve been proud of. there hasn’t been a single thing i’ve written and posted that i’ve regretted or thought was subpar, so i’m rly proud of myself for and happy about that!! 
> 
> finally this is the only fandom i’ve ever gotten THIS much feedback from for my writing, so i love every single one of you so much you have no idea <3 y’all inspire me so much.


	3. After the Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ponyboy comforts Johnny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven’t written anything from ponyboy’s perspective yet, so i wanted to try this when i was given the suggestion for it. i’m not as comfortable writing for him as i am johnny and dally, so sorry if this sounds rly out of character or something. 
> 
> this is kinda short, but i didn't know what else to add rip.
> 
> also this is probably the closest to johnny/ponyboy i will write, so enjoy it.

Everyone stayed in the living room for a long time after Johnny shuffled into Darry’s bedroom and went to sleep. Two-Bit and Steve drank their beers in silent, staring at nothing in particular. Darry stood in the corner, looking at the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line. Soda watched the TV with the volume on low and a frown on his face. And Ponyboy sat in the armchair Darry usually occupied, staring at the TV as well, but not seeing what was there. His kept flicking to the bedroom where Johnny was sleeping.

Ponyboy was ten. Two, almost three years younger than Johnny. But Johnny was his best friend other than Sodapop. And he’d heard Johnny talk about killing himself more than once, but he’d never taken him seriously. He thought it was a figure of speech. Two-Bit and Steve said it often enough as a joke that that was all he thought it ever was.

The fact Darry had pulled him away from the train tracks just barely in time shook him.

He listened to the TV drone on in the background, his mind racing with Johnny’s words.

_I just wanna die sometimes._

_I think a lot about what would happen if I killed myself._

_Maybe I would be better off dead. No one would miss me._

This last one made Pony want to cry because it made him realize that though the entire gang took care of Johnny and loved him as their own brother, it still wasn’t enough. Dallas was gone. And his parents still hurt him. And that seemed to be all he could think about.

A part of Pony felt mad that Johnny couldn’t see how much they all loved him, but a larger part of him imagined that if his own folks treated him the way Johnny’s did, he might start thinking that no one really loved him too. The thought alone made him sad. It meant that it would take a very long time before Johnny ever believed them. _If_ he ever believed them. Ponyboy had a feeling he wouldn’t unless he was out of his parents’ house.

It felt like they all sat that way, staring off into space, each of them thinking about what had almost just happened for hours. When Ponyboy blinked and looked out the window again and saw that it was still dark and night, he felt he found himself surprised that the beginnings of dawn weren’t visible in the sky instead. When he looked at the clock, he’d found it’d only been forty-five minutes.

Eventually, Darry mumbled something about having to get to school in the morning and ordered everyone either to bed or out of the house. Steve and Two-Bit left. Soda drifted into the bedroom he shared with Ponyboy and Darry went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Pony was left sitting on the couch, still staring at the TV on low volume. He sat there for another fifteen minutes, staring at nothing, not thinking about anything in particular before he stood slowly and turned off the TV. He’d hardly realized it was the only light source in the living room and without it, the room was plunged into darkness. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden black and when they did, found he was looking towards Darry’s room.

Darry’s room where Johnny was sleeping.

He glanced towards his room. The lights were already off and he could hear Soda’s gentle snores coming from the room. He glanced towards the bathroom. Darry was in the shower. He turned back to Darry’s room and went in that direction instead.

The door creaked slightly as he pushed it open. The lights were off in here too, but moonlight shone through the window, illuminating everything just enough to see the shapes of things and some details. Pony closed the door behind him and realized that he couldn’t hear the same calm breathing he could coming from his room and wondered if that meant Johnny was still awake.

Trying not to disturb him just in case he was asleep, he tiptoed across the room and crawled into the bed. He didn’t get under the blankets. Johnny didn’t like being touched anyway, but he especially didn’t like being touched when he was sleeping. Ponyboy had found that out the hard way when he’d tried waking up and gotten hit in the face instead. Johnny had felt really bad and apologized several times later, but Pony was never mad at him about it. In fact, if anything, he was sad. It made him wonder what had happened to him to make him that afraid of other people.

“Ponyboy? That you?”

Johnny’s voice, weak and hoarse came out of the darkness.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said softly. “How you feelin’, Johnnycake?”

There was a silence. Then, “I’m okay.”

“That ain’t true. You know I know that ain’t true,” Pony replied.

Johnny was quiet again. This time he said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I wish Darry hadn’t saved me. All that happened was I scared y’all. If I’d been dead that never woulda happened again. Y’all would be okay now.”

That was more than Ponyboy had ever heard Johnny say at one time and for a moment he was at a loss for words because of this. Then he said, “Yeah, if you’d died, we’d all be here cryin’ and tryin’ to figure out how to sneak into your funeral without your folks noticin’ instead. And that woulda been worse, Johnnycake.” He used the nickname that the gang had chosen for him, hoping this would show him, at least a little bit, just how much they cared.

There was another silence, then the bed shuddered slightly and he heard Johnny sniff. With a jolt, he realized Johnny was crying.

Pony hadn’t seen Johnny cry before. And he supposed he wasn’t really seeing him now, it was so dark. But he’d never _heard_ him cry before either. At least not like this. Usually when he was crying, he was hysterical, losing it because of something his folks had done to him. But this was soft sobs, muffled into a pillow as he tried to stifle them so Ponyboy wouldn’t hear. They were sobs of pure sorrow and it made Pony wonder just how many times Johnny had cried like this and if this was a rare occurrence or if it happened a lot more often than the gang thought it did.

Ponyboy stayed with Johnny the whole night, falling asleep on top of the covers, listening to Johnny’s stilted breathing as he cried himself to sleep. A part of Pony was afraid to sleep, certain that once he woke up he would find Johnny hanging from the rafters by the bed sheets or walk in on him on the bathroom floor surrounded by his own blood.

So when he woke up the next morning and Johnny was still sound asleep next to him, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling, glad that for once his nightmares hadn’t come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i was writing this, i also was thinking about the time johnny says he wants to kill himself in the book and thought that this entire ficlet could explain why he’s worried about him doing exactly that.
> 
> also i know in another fic i said that dally's mother gave johnny his nickname and that is still true, ponyboy just doesn't know that.


	4. A Hood’s Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally comes back and spends all of his time hanging out with Johnny. Darry tells them both what he thinks about that. All Dally knows is he loves Johnny. All Johnny knows is Dally taught him how to smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was highkey inspired by role models by dyingpoet so crediting that here, since i can’t just credit fics for single chapters. this kinda makes it seem like it could be the final chapter for this universe and tbh it might be, but i guess we’ll see.

It had been two weeks since Dallas Winston came home. Interestingly enough, he’d come back the day after Johnny tried to step in front of a train. And it had been Johnny that had found him first too. He’d been leaving the Curtis house and Dally had seen him from down the street. At first, he hadn’t recognized him. When he’d left, Johnny was just a kid, but almost five years had passed since then and he looked grown up now.

Dallas remembered his heart fluttering in his chest, a sensation he tried hard to ignore, as he looked at Johnny, watched him stuff his hands into his pockets, kick something across the yard and then start down the street. Dally remembered running to him, gathering him in his arms and hugging him tighter than he’d ever hugged anyone in his life. He remembered the way Johnny looked up in fear at the approaching footsteps and then surprise. Dallas Winston didn’t hug, but he did hug Johnny. Johnny was too stunned to hold him back.

It was only after he pulled away that he saw how sick he looked.

Johnny was almost too thin, his skin pale, his face drawn. But Dally had ignored it, not wanting to know – though, maybe, he already knew – why Johnny looked as ill as he did. Instead of talking about it, they’d gone back to the Curtis house and everyone had said hello to him. Everyone except Darry. He hadn’t understood why, but he found out. Two weeks later.

Until then, he and Johnny spent the two weeks doing everything together. They went with Ponyboy and Sodapop to the cliff overlooking a lake. It was high enough that jumping in would be scary, but low enough that jumping in wouldn’t kill them. They’d jumped in and spent the afternoon swimming in the lake. They’d gone to the train yard and smoked on the boxcars, lying back on the boxcars and looking at the stars once the sun went down. They stole cigarettes from the nearby corner store and they annoyed rich adults downtown by talking vulgar.

They’d had fun. And Johnny had started to look better. Dallas didn’t know it, but he was smiling for the first time in years. He was laughing for the first time in years too. And Dally felt happy for the first time since his mother died as well. He wanted that summer to last forever.

But nothing lasts forever. And it was when they were at the Curtis house one evening and Johnny had fallen asleep on the couch, a cigarette between his fingers – Soda later took it from him and put it out in the ashtray on the coffee table – that Darry spoke to him. And, after that, they still had fun, but nothing was really the same after that. At least, not to Dally.

“I don’t think y’all are good for each other sometimes,” Darry said softly.

The TV was on in the background. Sodapop, Two-Bit, and Steve were making a racket in the kitchen as they tried to make everyone dinner. Dally was surprised Johnny wasn’t woken up by it, but he slept like the dead and Dallas wondered vaguely why he seemed so tired all the time.

Dally turned to look at Darry, drawing his brows together and frowning at the same time. “What the hell does that mean?”

Darry was smoking a cigarette. He took a drag and ashed it in the tray on the coffee table. “You just mean a lot to him is all,” he said. “He really looks up to you and he was in a real bad way when you were gone, Dally. He was sick all the time and hardly ate or slept.” Darry looked away, taking another long drag on his cigarette before he added, “I had to pull him away from stepping in front of a train the night before you came back cause he thought you weren’t ever comin’ back. And...later that night I caught him hurtin’ himself with a razor blade in the bathroom.”

“ _What_?!” Dally asked, his voice a stunned whisper.

Darry didn’t reply for a long time and that gave Dally plenty of time to think.

His eyes flicked to Johnny, sleeping on the couch. He thought of the Johnny he’d seen when he’d first come back, the thin, pale, sick looking Johnny, and realized with a horrible jolt that he’d caused that. He’d been the one to make Johnny consider stepping in front of a train. He’d been the one to make him so sick he looked like he was dying. Dally clutched his own arm automatically, thinking of the scars there, wondering if his arm looked the same, wondered if it had as many or even more scars. He’d been the one to make him hurt himself too.

“We all love Johnny, Dallas,” Darry was saying now. “We just don’t wanna see him get hurt. We were all real worried about him while you were gone. The only reason I found him at the train yard that night was cause I thought somethin’ like that might happen eventually with the way he was talkin’. I don’t think he would survive somethin’ like that happen’ again.”

It was then Dally realized Darry thought he was going to leave again. He opened his mouth to tell him that wasn’t the case, but realized it wouldn’t matter. He’d said he would never leave before his mother died, but then he had left. He’d gone to New York to stay with his uncle. His old man had come originally at first too, but returned after only a couple of months. He wondered vaguely what that must have been like for Johnny, walking past his house, knowing it was no longer safe.

He had to grit his teeth to keep from grimacing.

How had he not realized before the pain he was going to be putting Johnny through? How could he think that he could leave without saying goodbye, without any explanation, and have Johnny be okay? How could he have been so fucking selfish?

“I ain’t sayin’ you gotta stop hangin’ out with him,” Darry went on. “I’m just sayin’ be careful. He tries to act tough to keep us from worryin’, but he’s a lot more fragile than you think.”

Dally didn’t reply. He only glanced at Johnny with his eyes, watching him sleep, wondering how close he’d truly come to losing him, wondering even more if Darry was right and they weren’t good for each other. If Johnny had tried to kill himself over him, that couldn’t be healthy.

 _But I’m back now and I’m not leaving,_ he told himself. _I ain’t gonna leave again. He only felt that way cause I left. If I never leave again, it won’t happen again._

It felt like a weak argument even though it was true.

He turned to look at Darry again, but he was gone, headed into the kitchen to yell at Soda and Steve who had somehow set the stove on fire.

Dally clenched his hands into fists and turned back to Johnny.

Even if he never left again, the fact remained that he had caused Johnny to try to commit suicide and that, to him, was unforgivable. He was supposed to be his best friend and protector. And yet he’d done this to him. He had scars on his arms because of him too.

Darry was the one that was cooking dinner now and Soda, Steve, and Two-Bit tromped back into the living room, each carrying a beer, one of them turning up the TV as they talked loudly. Johnny slept through it all and Dally sat on the couch, watching him sleep, his nails biting so deep into his pals that they drew blood.

* * *

Johnny couldn’t remember being happier since Dally had come back. It was almost like the last five years never happened. He spent his days roaming the town with Dally, smoking cigarettes on the street corners, jumping into the lakes that bordered the town and were more out towards the country, and even going with Two-Bit to various drugstores and grocery stores and corner stores to steal whatever they could grab. He didn’t steal anything, but he grinned as he watched Dallas and Two-Bit do it. Dally mostly stole cigarettes. Two-Bit stole anything he thought he could get away with stealing.

Johnny spent most of his nights in the vacant lot, on the Curtis’ couch, or on Dally’s couch when his father wasn’t home. Rarely having to go home made his life a lot easier. Every once in a while he had to go for clean clothes or laundry detergent so he could wash his clothes at the laundromat. But those times were few and far between and he didn’t really need to use his own laundry detergent unless everyone else was out.

He’d gone over to the Curtis’ house after a day of goofing off in town and then going to the drive -in with Ponyboy and Dally once it got dark. Steve had met them there after work and Two-Bit had come with his usual bottle of beer in a paper sack. They’d caused a ruckus and had eventually been told to be quiet or they’d be kicked out. They’d gone to the Curtis place once the movie was over and Johnny had immediately crashed on the couch, dead to the world until he woke up the next morning as Darry was getting ready for work. He had a part time job on the weekends to help his parents out with the bills around the house.

“Morning, Johnnycake,” Darry said smiling at him as he pulled on his shirt. “How’d you sleep?”

Johnny yawned, squinting against the bright sunlight that streamed through the living room’s windows. He turned to Darry and yawned again before he said, his voice hoarse from sleep, “I slept okay. Your couch is real comfortable.”

“You’re welcome to use it any time,” Darry said. He said this every time Johnny mentioned sleeping over and Johnny was grateful for it. He needed the constant reminder or he’d start thinking he was a burden and sleep at home again. He liked not like sleeping at home.

Johnny stood and stretched and started heading out the door, intent on heading into town to see if he could find some money to buy himself some cigarettes. He was almost out.

“Hey, where you goin’?” Darry called after him.

He stopped halfway out the door and said, “Just gonna go see if I can find some money to buy cigarettes. I ain’t got very many left in my current pack.”

“Hold on and I’ll drive you,” Darry replied. He was smiling, but there was something strained in his smile as he turned away to bend over and grab his shoes off the floor. Johnny watched him put them on before he stood and led the way out the door, Johnny following close behind.

Darry got into the driver’s seat of the truck parked in front of the Curtis house and Johnny got into the passenger seat. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared out the window as Darry started up the car and headed towards town.

The car was silent, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. Johnny could feel the tension and felt as though he could cut it with a knife. He also didn’t know where it came from, but he also knew that Darry had been like this ever since Dallas came back.

“You oughta be careful around Dallas, okay Johnnycake?” Darry finally said. “I don’t want him hurtin’ you or nothin’ like he did before when he left.”

Johnny turned to look at Darry, drawing his brows together. “What d’you mean? He ain’t ever hurt me before.”

Darry swallowed hard. “Yeah, he did. When he left, he hurt you bad.”

Johnny looked away again. “That weren’t his fault,” he said softly.

But Darry didn’t agree and he started to tell Johnny so, but Johnny thought of the few months before Dally left, before his mother died when he was seven and Dally was eight. The first time he brought a pack of cigarettes to the lot when he found him sleeping out there. He smiled at the memory.

* * *

 _The night was dark and windy,_ _so windy that_ Johnny hadn’t been able to start a fire. He’d only been able to gather as many newspapers as he could – though plenty of them blew away with how strong the wind was – and curl up on the car seat, hoping the newspapers would be enough to keep him warm. He hated sleeping outside, but it was better than sleeping in his house where his father could get to him. It was Dally who’d shown him the car seat in the vacant lot and told him that if he wanted he could sleep out there during the warm months. It had been a god send. And now he slept there almost every night in the spring, summer, and even fall.

He was almost asleep when he felt someone fall down onto the couch next to him and he immediately started awake, his heart beating a mile a minute as he sat upright, ready to run from whatever it was. But then he recognized the shape sitting at the end of the couch and realized it was only Dallas. He smiled wearily, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he said, “Hey Dallas.”

“Hey Johnnycake,” he said softly. He spoke in a conspiratorial voice and, though it was dark out, Johnny could see in the shadows cast from the moon that he was grinning.

“What is it?” he asked, sitting up and scooting closer to him.

Dally held something in one hand. Johnny heart a _scritch!_ and then a flame burst to life, despite the wind whipping around them. Dally held one hand around the flame to keep it from going on and Johnny could see in his mouth was a cigarette. Johnny felt himself turn bright red. He’d never smoked before. He knew that some of the older boys in their group of friends did, but he was only seven and Dally was only eight. He didn’t think any of them had started that young.

As Johnny watched, Dally lit the cigarette and took a puff. To his surprise, Dally didn’t cough and Johnny wondered if he’d done it before.

“Wanna try?” Dallas asked, grinning, holding the cigarette out to Johnny.

He took it without hesitation. Even then he idolized Dally in something close to hero worship and if him smoking a cigarette would make Dallas happy, he’d do it in an instant. He took a puff on the cigarette and automatically coughed. Dally laughed and said, “You gotta hold it for a second and then blow it out. Otherwise you don’t get the buzz that comes with it.”

Johnny didn’t know what that meant, but he tried what Dally suggested and coughed again. Dally let him take puffs until he finally was able to take one without coughing. Then he immediately took it away and said, “If you smoke too much more you’re gonna feel sick. You can get nicotine poisoning if you smoke too much too fast.”

Johnny didn’t know what that meant either, but he nodded and watched Dally puff on the cigarette. He tried blowing smoke rings at the moon, but it just came out as balls of smoke instead. He had Johnny try, telling him how to shape his mouth to get the smoke to form into rings. Surprisingly, Johnny had better luck and actually managed to blow a few smoke rings at the moon.

“Whoa! Nice one, Johnnycake!” Dally exclaimed and Johnny giggled.

That would be the last time _he was really happy for a long time._

* * *

Johnny came back to the present, realizing Darry had finished talking about Dallas and was now telling him he’d give him the money he needed to buy a couple of packs of cigarettes. At first, Johnny protested, knowing the Curtis family wasn’t any more well off than any of the other families in their neighborhood, but Darry insisted and he took it.

As he got out of the car, he leaned over and said, “Johnny, I know you really look up to Dallas and I ain’t sayin’ y’all can’t hang out together. I just want you to be careful. Last time he hurt you, it almost killed you and the gang can’t live without’cha, kid.”

Johnny nodded, though he felt like it was a weird thing to say. He knew that Darry didn’t believe Dally hadn’t hurt him, but it hadn’t really been Dally. _He’d_ been the one that had chosen to go down to the train yard. _He’d_ been the one who had thought Dallas was never coming back, though he’d said no such thing. Not really. He didn’t blame Dally for what had happened. How could he?

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked into the drugstore, his fingers curled around the money that Darry had given him. Maybe in another world or another life Dally teaching him how to smoke would be considered being a bad influence. Maybe him stealing around him and teaching him how to fight would also be considered a bad influence too.

But they were greasers. They didn’t live in a safe part of town and smoking, fighting, and stealing were part of life. Johnny didn’t steal, but he knew how to smoke and he knew how to fight and that was because he had to know both of them.

 _Dally ain’t ever hurt me and he ain’t ever going to,_ Johnny thought to himself, frowning as he did so. He kicked at a few rocks that were scattered around the parking lot of the drugstore. He looked into one corner and saw a few greasers all smoking cigarettes together. One of them was as young as he had been when he’d first started smoking. It had only been two years later that he started. Smoking with Dally had just been his first time.

He shook his head and looked away, still frowning. Dally had only ever protected him. And that was more than could be said for most people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if i have any ideas in the future i’ll just post em even tho everything will just be out of order, so i hope people read my notes. for now tho, this is done <3


	5. Cancer Sticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny starts smoking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i guess this isn’t over. this ofc happens before the last chapter, but like i said, this is gonna be out of order now.

It was a cool, breezy night in June. Johnny watched the fire in the oil drum blow every which way as the wind blew too. The gang had been hanging out in the lot earlier in the night and Darry had shown him how to build a fire that would last all night if he kept feeding it. Once everyone else had gone home, he’d stayed, staring into the fire he and Darry had built, wondering how much longer he could stay awake to tend to it and how much longer it would keep burning after he finally fell asleep.

He was holding a pack of cigarettes in one hand. One of the gang had left them on the car seat when they’d left and Johnny had picked them up. There were some matches inside the cigarette pack. Johnny had smoked once before a year ago with Dallas, but Dallas was gone now. He’d left them all for New York once his mother died. Johnny didn’t know if he was coming back.

He pulled a cigarette out of the pack and stared at its silhouette around the flames.

It had been a year since Dallas left. He was starting to bet _not_.

For whatever reason, even as he sat there, staring at the cigarette, thinking about the time he’d smoked with Dallas in the vacant lot a year ago, he felt hesitant to smoke the cigarette between his fingers now. And he didn’t even know why.

 _What is gonna matter if you smoke?_ A voice whispered inside him. _No one is here to see you. And besides, who is gonna care? Everyone you know smokes._

But there was something in him that clenched at the thought of smoking. And, as he thought about it more, he realized that, for whatever reason, it felt like he was standing on a precipice, looking down into a dark abyss below. He could either walk away from it or fling himself into it. Smoking felt like flinging, not smoking felt like walking. And yet, the thought of flinging himself into unknown darkness and terrors sounded far more appealing to him at the moment that walking back to the miserable life he already knew.

 _It’s just a cigarette,_ he thought to himself.

But it sure didn’t feel like that.

Very slowly he pulled the matchbook that was inside the cigarette pack out and set it in his lap. He couldn’t see its details by the light of the fire. It was too dark around him. But he could the individual matches, separated by bright red tips. He broke one off and this time, stared at _it_ in the light of the fire. If he held it far enough away, the red tip vanished and it became all black. Just a silhouette.

_It’s just a cigarette._

And really, what, logically, was going to happen if he smoked? He’d cough a little bit, maybe get a buzz, maybe get a little sick if he smoked too much, but it would pass and he’d be fine. Then when the gang was all smoking together, he would just smoke with them. They might comment, but other than that, nothing would really change.

It didn’t matter how he felt.

It really _was_ just a cigarette.

He lit the match, watching the flame burst to life, turning the red tip into a brilliant flame. He lifted the cigarette and put it in his mouth. He closed his eyes and took a breath. In his mind, he saw himself standing on the edge of the precipice. It was like a sheer cliff, the wind at the top whipping his hair and clothes every which way as his toes curled over the edge and he stared down into blackness.

He put the lit match to the end of the cigarette and took a breath in.

He stepped off the edge and fell.

He was still sitting in the vacant lot, his eyes still closed, the cigarette smoke filling his lungs, but that wasn’t where he saw himself.

He saw himself falling through blackness, horror, darkness, and when he tried to see the bottom, tried to see whether he would live or die once he reached it, he couldn’t see anything except more of the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW THAT WAS SHORT. also i’m going to pride, so i won’t be posting over the weekend probably, so enjoy this!! i’ll go back to my regular posting schedule on monday hopefully!!


	6. Secondary Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darry finds Johnny by the side of the road one night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every time i think this series is done, i come up with a new idea. i have one more idea after that and then it's probably gonna be done for a while, unless i get a request or come up with something else.

As Johnny burst out of his house, his mother screaming behind him, waving the broomstick threateningly as she did so, he thought vaguely that it was starting to seem that life really enjoyed kicking him while he was down.

It had been four years, three months, two weeks, and three days since Dallas had left for New York and there was still no sign of him coming back. If he were here, Johnny would’ve gone to the vacant lot to wait for him. Maybe build a fire and watch the flames dance in the darkness while he waited for Dallas to show up.

But Dallas wasn’t here.

He was gone.

And he wasn’t coming back.

So he didn’t go to the lot. He staggered down the street, his vision blurred by tears, his legs so shaky he couldn’t walk a straight line. He was grimacing too in an attempt to keep the sobs rising in his chest from exiting him. He had his arms wrapped around himself, a vain attempt at comforting himself when there was no one else to do so.

Finally, he couldn’t go any further, and his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the ground, throwing his hands out in front of him to catch himself. He cried out as the pavement scraped his palms and then he was silent. He sat there in the middle of the road, his head hanging, staring at the pavement as the tears finally leaked out of his eyes and splashed onto the ground. His arms shook from the effort of holding him up, his legs laid on their sides, all but useless, shaking just as bad. He was gasping for breath, almost hyperventilating with the effort of keeping his sobs locked in him.

It wasn’t fair. None of it.

Dallas should’ve been _here_ with _him_ , not in New York doing god knew what.

He shouldn’t have been sitting in the middle of the road, unable to move, wishing that a car would come down the road and hit him in his paralysis, ending his suffering permanently.

Nothing was going as it should be. And though he often felt he deserved his suffering and that everything that happened to him was his fault, he also knew that things weren’t supposed to be this incredibly difficult either. He wasn’t supposed to be attempting suicide every weekend and spending the weekdays planning on how to do it again when his attempts inevitably failed.

He closed his eyes tight, his scraped palms curling into fists, his jaw clenching, his grimace never leaving his face as he let out a shuddering, agonized, whimpering moan. His nails dug into the already bleeding cuts on his palms making them worse as he struggled to keep himself from screaming. No one paid attention to the screams in this neighborhood, but he was in the middle of the road between several houses rather than in one. They might pay attention to that more than the screams coming from behind closed doors.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a bright light shining behind him, casting his shadow far across the road. Johnny looked over his shoulder and saw a truck coming towards him. He didn’t bother to move. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to die. So he sat there. He watched the truck come nearer and nearer and, when it was almost on him he closed his eyes.

But the impact never came.

In fact, when he opened his eyes, the truck had stopped and driver was opening the door.

Johnny wanted to scream, but instead grimaced and slammed the side of his fist into the ground. Why was it every time he tried to die something stopped it?

“Johnny?”

The voice made him open his eyes and turn back to the truck.

Darry was standing over him. He knelt down very slowly as if afraid to spook him. His brows were drawn together and he was frowning, his lips pressed into a thin line. His entire face was a mask of concern. Johnny looked away almost as quickly. He knew Darry knew what he’d tried to do. Again. If it’d been anyone but Darry coming down the road, he would’ve succeeded. He would’ve gotten his wish. He would’ve died.

“What’re you doing here?” Darry asked, his voice quiet, tentative.

“I just want it all to end,” Johnny whispered, choking on fresh tears forming in his eyes, fresh sobs rising in his chest at the same time. He slammed his fist into the pavement again. “I want everything to stop hurting. I want my folks to stop hurting me.” He hung his head and when he spoke again, his voice was a whisper, “I want Dallas to come back. I want everything like it was.”

Darry was quiet, watching him cry, watching his shoulders shake. Johnny felt ashamed. He wasn’t supposed to cry. No one else in the gang cried. Not like he did. And yet everyone didn’t seem to care. If it were someone else, they would say something, tell them to suck it up and stop it, but Johnny was different. He’d always been different. He was starting to think it was because they all could see it, written plainly on his face: he was broken.

Darry didn’t say anything in response, but Johnny didn’t mind. He knew why.

What _could_ you say to someone who you knew was suffering? Who you knew death might even be a blessing for at this point? The truth was there _wasn’t_ anything he could say. None of the gang knew how Johnny felt. Not really. They couldn’t comprehend his pain. And though they all begged him to stick around, he had a feeling they all knew it was a selfish impulse. They knew Johnny went through things the rest of them couldn’t even imagine.

How _could_ you ask someone like that to stay alive?

How _could_ you convince them that life was worth living when you didn’t even understand what they were going through to begin with?

Finally, Darry did speak and he said, “C’mon, let’s go back to my place. I’ll make you somethin’ to eat and you can watch TV and sleep on the couch.”

“But...your folks,” Johnny began, looking at Darry, concern in his own eyes now.

Darry smiled and shook his head. “It ain’t a problem, Johnny. They know. They’ll let you stay over whenever you want. You should know that by now.”

Johnny didn’t reply, but he let Darry help him up. He let him put him in the passenger seat of the truck. He let him drive him the rest of the way down the street to the Curtis’ house. He let him help him out of the car and up the steps to the front door. He let him help him inside and sit him on the couch and when he asked him what type of soup he wanted, he said shyly, “Tomato and basil?”

“Comin’ right up!” Darry said, grinning.

Johnny wasn’t sure if he was smiling to cheer him up or to convince himself everything was okay. Probably a mixture of both.

While Darry worked in the kitchen, Johnny watched cartoons, lying on the couch, silent tears leaking out of his eyes and making tracks down his cheeks. He was hardly taking in the show. All he could think about was Dallas. How long he’d been gone. How he probably wasn’t coming back. How much he missed him. How much happier he’d been while he was here.

Johnny wasn’t sure how long it took Darry to make the soup. It felt like it took no time at all and like he’d been waiting forever simultaneously. When Darry finally returned to the living room, holding a tray loaded with the soup and a piece of garlic bread on the side, Johnny sat up slowly, the world spinning as the blood rushed from his head as he did so. Darry knelt in front of him and placed the tray in his lap. Johnny didn’t look at Darry as he took the tray from him and began to eat slowly, wondering as he did so if he was going to be able to finish his meal.

Darry didn’t move, staying in his crouched position in front of Johnny, watching him eat. Finally, he said, “Y’know the rest of the gang needs you too, Johnny. Not just Dallas. We wouldn’t know what to do if you were gone.”

Johnny paused in eating for a moment, but didn’t look up. He didn’t say anything.

“I mean it, Johnny,” Darry said, this time tilting Johnny’s chin up to look at him. “We’re your family. Not those people you live with. _We_ are. And we all love you. You’re the kid. You’re the pet.”

This time tears filled Johnny’s eyes and he swallowed what was in his mouth as he said in a voice choked by tears, “Really?”

Johnny was sure he was hallucinating, but Darry’s eyes looked wet too. “Really,” he replied.

Johnny didn’t know what else to do, so he put his tray to one side and held Darry, shaking in his arms from the effort of not crying. At least until Darry held him back, running his hand up and down his back as he told him. “It’s okay, Johnnycake, you don’t gotta always be strong. You can let it out. I won’t tell no one else.”

And Johnny did.

He cried into Darry’s shoulder until he soaked his shirt, until he couldn’t breathe, until he’d exhausted himself and had no more tears left to cry. Then he finally pulled away and said, “I-I dunno what I’d do without y’all.” And he meant it. Without the gang – even excluding Dallas – he would’ve killed himself a long, long time ago.

“We don’t know what we’d do without you either, kid,” Darry replied, giving him a sad smile. “So don’t you leave us either, okay?”

There were tear tracks on his face too. Johnny didn’t point them out. But it did make him realize just how true Darry’s words were. And it still shocked him that someone could care about him that much. He wasn’t used to it. He wasn’t used to being cared about.

“Okay,” he said. He still wasn’t sure it was a promise he could keep, but in that moment, he felt like he just might be able to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> speaking of requests, i am SO SORRY IT'S TAKING ME FOREVER TO GET TO MY REQUESTS. i have ocd and i have to stick to a schedule otherwise nothing gets done. ;-;


	7. Weekend Trip Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally goes to New York for three days. What could possibly go wrong while he's gone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> out of order again rip, i’m just writing this as i come up with ideas for it, but this universe is fun to write for and if y’all have requests!! u know what to do ;)

Thursday night, Dally had been sitting home alone in his father’s house when someone had called him. It’d been someone from New York, one of his old gang buddies. They needed a favor. They needed him to come up for the weekend. Dally tried to say no. He didn’t want to go back to New York and he’d promised himself he never would once he left, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of it. And after only minimal protesting, he gave in, agreeing to go.

He didn’t bother leaving a note. It would only be three days. He would make sure it was. He’d drive all night tonight and get there in the morning. He’d be back by Sunday evening. No one would even know he’d been gone. He could call Darry once he got there. If they didn’t pick up, he could leave a message. Someone would get it before the weekend was over.

Someone could tell Johnny so he wouldn’t worry.

And yet, even as he thought that, something felt wrong, fake about what he thought or said. And no matter what he told himself or thought he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a bad idea, that he shouldn’t be leaving at all.

That three days was actually a very long time.

* * *

_3 Days Later_

Johnny staggered down the street, holding himself, tears pouring down his cheeks, stains of past ones still there. He was shaking and his face was set in a grimace as he struggled to hold back the sobs that had been rising in his chest since Friday when he’d gone to Dally’s house and found him gone with no explanation and suddenly it was like the last four years had never happened, like Dally had never come back from New York, and Johnny became again the person he’d been when Dally had left before.

His arms were more scar tissue than flesh anymore. They looked like he’d stuck them into the garbage disposal and turned it on for a good five minutes before finally deciding to pull them out. He was pale and had lost five pounds in three days from not eating a thing. The gang watched him like hawk every moment he was near any of them and they never let him be alone for longer than a few minutes at a time. Even now, staggering down the street, he’d just gotten away from Two-Bit and he was heading the Curtis’ house.

He’d tried to kill himself three times in three days. First at the bridge, then the train tracks, and then with a knife. Darry had stopped him before he could do anything each time, almost like he’d been following him, but even if that were what was going on, Johnny was too lost to care.

At least when Dally had gone to New York, he’d left a note. This time he was just gone. No one knew when he was coming back or even if he was. Johnny kept thinking it was his fault, his fault, his fault. That somehow he’d done something to upset Dallas and this was his punishment: him leaving without even saying goodbye.

 _I can’t do this again,_ a voice whispered in his head and he wasn’t sure if it was just a voice or some deep dark part of himself that was sick of suffering. Maybe it was both.

Whatever it was. He knew it was right.

He couldn’t do this again.

* * *

_Four Hours Later_

Dally took a deep breath of Tulsa air as he walked down the darkened street towards the Curtis’ place. He’d been back for only ten minutes and he hadn’t found Johnny in the lot, so he was headed to the Curtis’ place, knowing he’d be there if he wasn’t at the lot. His trip to New York had been long and stressful, even though it’d only lasted three days. The bad feeling that had plagued him since he left had never really gone away, but he had convinced himself only a few hours into his trip that everything was just fine and it was just his anxiety bothering him. Nothing more, nothing less. He’d given Darry a call as soon as he got to New York, so he knew there was nothing to worry about. Darry would’ve gotten his message. Darry would’ve told Johnny what was going on.

He watched a breeze blow through the trees surrounding the Curtis place as he walked up the front porch and knocked on the door, waiting for someone to answer, a smile on his face, but the moment Darry answered and he saw the look on _his_ face, his own smile vanished. He didn’t have to ask to know something was wrong.

“What happened?” he asked, thinking of Johnny dead, Johnny hurt, Johnny sick.

Darry only shook his head. His clear disappointment in him hurt worse than anything else he could’ve done. He stepped away from the door, allowing Dallas room to come in as he said, “He’s sleeping on the couch in the living room.”

Dally stepped through the door and Darry shut it behind him, going to lean against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as Dally knelt in front of the couch, staring at Johnny. His heart broke just looking at him. He could tell that he weekend had taken a toll on him. He was pale, his dark skin looking far lighter than it did usually. He was thinner too and Dally wondered if he’d even eaten anything while he’d been gone. He was wearing his denim jacket, but it rode up on his arms and he could see what he’d done to them. He swallowed hard.

 _You shouldn’t have left,_ a voice in his head whispered. _You should’ve known this would happen. You knew something was wrong. Why didn’t you go back?_

And he had no answer for it. Everything it said was right. This was _his_ fault and he knew it.

He reached out tentatively, pushing Johnny’s hair back from his face. Johnny started awake and for several moments just stared at Dallas, his eyes wide, as though hardly daring to believe he was really there, really sitting in front of him. He reached out shaking hands and swallowed, saying in a quiet voice, barely more than a whisper, “Dallas?” His fingers brushed his face as though making sure he were really there. He reached out with both hands, holding Dally’s face in them. They were shaking badly and they only lightly brushed his skin as though afraid he would vanish again in an instant.

Dally wanted to cry. This reaction alone was enough to tell him all he needed to know about what had happened while he was gone. “Yeah, it’s me, Johnnycake,” he said, his voice soft, one hand reaching up to cover Johnny’s hand with his own, not caring that Darry was right there to watch it.

Johnny’s eyes filled with tears and he took a shuddering breath as he said, “What happened, Dal? Where’d you go, man? I thought-I thought...” He didn’t continue. He took another shuddering breath, clearly struggling to keep the sobs rising in his chest from being released. Dally wanted to gather him in his arms, hold him, promise him that this would never happen again, but he was afraid to touch Johnny, afraid he’d push him away and start yelling at him instead. And honestly, Dally wished he would. He deserved it for what he’d done.

But he didn’t do that, instead he took a few more gasping breaths and then whispered, “I’m glad you’re back, Dal. I’m real glad, man. I-I didn’t think I was ever gonna see you again.”

Dally continued brushing Johnny’s hair back from his face, wanting to kiss his forehead, but still afraid of what would happen if he were any more intimate with him than he was being right now. “You eaten anythin’ today?” he asked, though he already knew the answer, his voice just as quiet.

Johnny shook his head, settling back into the couch, already closing his eyes again.

This time Dally did lean forward and kiss his forehead, promising silently he would make him something, he would feed him, and he wouldn’t leave again.

He got up and went to the kitchen. Darry was in there, already making a soup, a towel over his shoulder. He didn’t look up as Dally came in and suddenly Dally was angry. His hands clenched into fists and he said, “Darry, what the hell, man? I left you a message. Why didn’t you tell him?”

Darry wheeled around so fast, Dally took a step back as Darry pointed to the phone, the red light still blinking with the notification of a new message as he hissed, his voice quiet so he wouldn’t disturb Johnny who was sleeping again, “We all work, Dallas! Ponyboy’s goin’ to school and don’t check the messages! I work from nine in the morning to ten at night and barely got time to make Soda and Pony breakfast before I go to work! Soda works just as much! You know that!” Darry turned away, running his hands through his hair. It occurred to Dallas then that Darry probably wanted to deck him. When he turned back to him he said, “Why couldn’t you have left a note, Dallas? Just a fuckin’ note. I had to give him sleepin’ pills so he could sleep. He ain’t ate a thing or slept at all since you been gone. Do you have _any_ idea what happened while you were gone?”

Dally didn’t know what to say, had no words, but he managed to gasp out, “What?” only because he didn’t know what else to say and he wanted to know, wanted to punish himself with knowledge, make sure he was never this stupid again.

“I found him by the train tracks. And the bridge. And then I found him in that bathroom –” here Darry pointed to the bathroom just off the living room, “– with his knife about ready to slit his wrists.” Darry swallowed hard and Dally was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “You gotta be careful, Dallas. You gotta be careful, man. One day you’re gonna leave and when you come back...” He didn’t go on, but Dally knew where that train of thought was going and he didn’t think Darry was wrong.

For a long time, Dallas was silent. Darry only called him by his full name when things were serious and he knew that Darry wasn’t trying to hurt him, wasn’t trying to make him feel bad, just tell him the gravity of the situation, but if Dally could’ve died, right there on the spot, he just might have done it. The only thing that would’ve stopped him was the knowledge that Johnny would be alone and he would have failed him yet again.

“I’m gonna stay with him. Here. Tonight,” Dally said, looking at the floor, unable to look at Darry as he spoke. “I don’t wanna leave him alone.”

“That’s fine,” Darry said, going back to making the soup on the stove. “Just...be careful with him, Dallas. You ain’t the only one that would be lost without him.”

Dally sat next to Johnny, watching him sleep, brushing his hair from his eyes, occasionally glancing at the muted television playing some show he wasn’t familiar with.

 _Not again,_ he told himself as he watched Johnny sleep, stared at the bruise-like circles under his eyes. _Never again._

He wasn’t going to fail Johnny again.

He didn’t think either one of them would survive it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is the end (again) until i get more ideas or get a request!! i got this idea from a roleplay me and my gf did!!


End file.
